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Parent Teacher Interview

Last week we received Miss 8’s report for the first two terms of Year 3 and her grades were a mix of B’s and C’s as they usually are and I was happy with that. But I knew that at today’s parent teacher interview I would be met with a bit of attitude in regards to the number of days that Miss 8 has had off so far this year.

And as expected in questions that I raised in relation to Miss 8’s marks or in regards to what areas we needed to focus on for improvement were all met with responses about how she is missing ‘chunks’ of work due to her being away so much.

The “Every Minute Counts” initiative which emphasises the amount of time lost over the course of a term or a year if a child is even just 10 minutes late each day is in full force at our school with posters up everywhere. And I am not saying that I do not support the initiative but kids get sick and sometimes need to stay home. There is a difference between your child actually being away from school because they are sick and your child being late every day because they couldn’t find their shoe or their hat, or their homework, or because they slept in or missed the bus.

Miss 8 will catch every bug that goes through the school and she will usually be wiped out by it for a few days. By the end of February, she had been off school for about 4 days with a stomach bug. She was sick, in bed, sleeping.

A few weeks after she recovered from that she had a fall at gymnastics that resulted in hip/quad muscle injury and a few days off in bed icing her leg.

Other than that there have been a few other days here and there with a sore throat, cough and cold symptoms etc.. Last week she had conjunctivitis.

I had to bite my tongue a bit during the interview but I made it through! I am not going to send my child to school when she is sick, it’s that simple. And if a child is away sick there needs to be some way to help them catch up on what they have missed while they were away. I don’t have the answer to how this can be done but surely there is something that can be done, a quick revision, a sheet to take home, a link to read over at home….something.

And don’t even get me started on the fact that if other parents kept their kids home when they are sick then maybe Miss 8 wouldn’t get sick in the first place!!! Argh it’s been a long day!

What are your thoughts on the whole “Every Minute Counts” campaign? It drives me a little crazy!